Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1887-09-10
ONE FETISH LESS.
HOW MARX DESTROYS AN OLD
SUPERSTITION.
The SCATTERING OF the "Diyine Law
of supply and Dcmand"-Thc
Function of Credit HUI
man Activity Taken
Into Account.
BY DIR. A. DOUAI.

In his great work, "Capital," the
works "supply and demand are
not once mentioned by Karl Marx.
Considering the great breadth which
they fill in the works of the old
school of political economy, Marx
must have omitted them purposely.
He seems to have intended to show
that the so-called "iron law" or
natural" or "divine law" of sup
ply and demand which is said to
rule prices and constitute values,
explains nothing, but must itself be
explained first. In fact, before Karl
Marx, the notion or idea of value
Exchange value) had never been
scientifically analyzed from the facts
of common exchanges. lie was the
first to lay a foundation for that
science through analysis and strict
definitions; he showed that it is la
bor which imparts to all commodl-
ties their exchange values and labor
only. Adam Smith had begun his
great work con the Wealth of Ma
tions," with the correct statement
that it is labor which imparts value
to wares ; but Immediately after, in
stead of proving this statement, he
goes ON to ascribe to the supply of
and the demand for each ware the
important Office of fixing or measur-
ing the value and the price of each.
Thus he shut up the very gate
through which alone the entrance
into the store house of economical
knowledge can be effected.
Now Marx must not be under
stood to have denied that supply
and demand have a great deal to do
with the regulation of values and
prices. He acknowledges that fact
by all his reasonings, but he keeps
the terms supply and demand aside
in his Investigations, because they
have led astray even such great
minds as those of Adam Smith and
Ricardo. He shows that by so do
ing the old superstition in this law
of supply and demand must be de-
stroyed and the path to the full
truth that labor alone creates values
of exchange, will be understood.
There is such a natural law which
makes merchandise dear whose sup
ply is exceeded by the demand for
it, and which makes it cheap, when
the demand for it is exceeded by the
supply; but even this law may be
and is constantly altered by human
activity; it is no fetter to human
activity. As rule all commodities
which may be increased and dimln-
ished with practical limits, receive
their exchange value by labor and
labor alone. Only such commodities
which cannot be increased and dim
inished ad Hmitum are determined
in their exchange value by the nat
ural law alone, and even these may
be gradually subjected to human
activity.
One of the commodities which
are, as a rule, not easily multiplied
by human efforts are the precious
metals, gold and silver, the stuff Of
which the worlds money is coined.
These two metals are rare, and their
rarity combined with their natural
qualities, gives them an exchange
value which seems to be entirely
determined by natural law. But
nowadays we know that two facts
have altered this exclusive rule of
natural law. There have been dis
covered new sources of the supply of
gold and silver in America, Australia
and South Africa-and 10! their ex-
change value vas greatly diminished
by human labor which produced
them with less effort than before.
There were also invented representa-
tive values or paper values, by which
the quantity of the circulating me-